


Nights in The Caucasus

by TheScythian



Category: Sword & Sworcery EP
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 03:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4731749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScythian/pseuds/TheScythian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Scythian's woeful journey is coming to an end. She's reached the Caucasus Mountains, found The Megatome, and is ready to tame the Trigons and save the world. Martyrdom should be easy. But there's this girl...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights in The Caucasus

**NIGHT 1**

We remember the first night we spent in the Caucasus. The rain fell in thick, perfectly vertical lines which was lucky. Had there been wind that night, we would have been drenched, sleeping under the shed where Logfella stored his wood. Then again, calling it a shed would have been generous. Sheds tend to have walls.

But shelter was shelter and we were super thankful to have a place to rest. It was a nice change of pace to be welcome somewhere— even if it was begrudgingly so on Logfella’s part. Girl, however, seemed to genuinely like us. On the other hand, she also liked worthless sheep. We tried not to take offense to the company.

That night we dreamed of floating animal skulls and three-eyed wolves. So you know, the usual. These were the dreams that had marked us as The Martyr when we were just a little girl. The dreams gave us a purpose and the courage to leave behind our familiar steppes even if it meant our doom. We still weren’t too keen on the doom part.

 

**NIGHT 2**

As we lay next to the piles of damp wood, we replayed the events of the day in our head. We had learned the powers of The Megatome. We had witnessed beautiful, unearthly creatures fly into the heavens. We had personally visited the twilight land of dreams. But the most magical part of our day had been our time with Girl.

Girl was most definitely strange. Even for mountain folk. She seemed to live in the space between the gods and men. Had she been raised the steppes, she would have been locked away in a temple where only the truly devout could speak with her. We were glad she wasn’t. When we spoke with her it felt like she was telling us secrets. Dangerous and beautiful secrets that made our heart ache. 

She had called to us from a side path. When we met her, her rain-slicked hair stuck to her slender neck and her clothes, already old and weathered, were stained with fresh mud. She was beautiful. Girl smiled had smiled and thanked us for sending the sylvan sprites skyward. She confided that we had been the only person to take her seriously when she spoke of them. We found this hard to believe of a people who regularly traversed dreamworlds, but whatever.

After more talk of sprites, she had taken our hand in hers. It should have been cold from the wet. It should have been calloused from a life of manual labor. But it was warm and soft and delicate.

Her voice seemed to catch in her throat when she told us to be careful. But it could have been the rain.

Girl’s hand was the first physical contact with another person that we had in the months since we left home. That night we studied our own hand— blistered from our sword’s hilt, scarred from close encounters with otherworldly beasts. She had held it so tightly, like a treasure she was afraid to lose. We had never thought of our had as valuable until that night. We were holding it close to our heart when we fell asleep.

 

**NIGHT 9**

We were excited to sleep. Which honestly was kinda making it hard for us to fall asleep. We had been getting really good at visiting the dream-world, even when we weren't sitting by the woodsman’s hearth.

Earlier that day, Girl had told us about a long dead goddess who had become a hollow tree. We laughed and called her a hippie but we believed her. We had seen the tree for ourselves, after all, and there was definitely something goddessy about it. She grinned and said that she’d wait there for us.

But when we finally slept, we found ourselves trapped in a dimly lit cavern and surrounded by the echoes of howling wolves. We didn’t think that Gogolithic Mass couldn’t touch us in the dream world but that didn’t stop us from freaking out.

We hoped Girl was okay. Just to stay on the safe side, we resolved not to look for her in the dreamworld anymore. Even though we really wanted to.

 

**NIGHT 12**

Under the light of a bright moon, Girl came to our not-shed and said that we didn’t need giant goddess trees for secret rendezvous. We blushed because we hadn’t realized that’s what it our aborted-meeting was supposed to have been. For all of our supernatural knowledge, we felt super dumb.

She leaned in and kissed us on the cheek. We felt like we had tamed 20 trigons!

We returned the kiss on her mouth. And we didn’t sleep at all that night.

 

**NIGHT 21**

Girl had slept with her head nestled in our shoulder. Some of her dark hair was in our face but we hadn't minded. We could smell her. The scent of fresh grass and earthy wool had filled our lungs and made us happier than we’d ever been.

We decided that the Scythian elders were wrong. They said the woeful errand would be lonely. But Girl was always there to listen. They said it would be confusing. But Girl always had the answers. They said it would be painful. But Girl’s presence made us feel like we could fly. Being a hero was amazing and we loved her. It. We loved it. Being a hero that is.

 

**NIGHT 28**

Under a the darkness of a new moon, we realized that martyrdom is stupid and we hated it. Our body hurt all over and we were pretty sure we had some bad internal bleeding going on.

Girl's normally cheerful face looked tight and stern when she tried to tend to our wounds. Our blood soaked through all of her bandages despite her best efforts. Looking at her, we remembered that first time she pulled us aside in the rain. We remembered when she held our hand.

We took her hand from its work and held it tightly in ours. It still felt warm and soft and delicate. We cried a little before we fell asleep.

 

**AFTERWARDS**

The night sky is cloudless and when the warm wind moves through the trees we can see the stars through the leaves, twinkling like fireflies. The woods smell like Logfella’s not-shed filled with planks of oak, hornbeam, maple, and ash. (How much wood does that guy need anyway?)

The goddess-tree has been spit in two and it kinda hurts to see it broken. What’s the point of saving the world if things that are supposed to be together aren’t?

Speaking of saving the world— Are we dead?

Yeah. We’re pretty sure we’re dead. Oh well. It was to be expected. This place though. This is a surprise.

“I told you I’d wait for you here.” Girl steps out from behind the dead tree and our heart leaps. Can a dead heart leap? Never mind. We don’t care. We love her.

**Author's Note:**

> My deepest apologies- this was written in the middle of the night (when inspiration strikes, of course) and posted without editing. Please leave gentle notes if you see anything that needs fixing. (I know the last section changes tenses but that was intentional. I hope it worked. If not, let me know.) And thanks for reading!
> 
> Now we are cosmic friends forever... OK?


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